Malta Conference
The Malta Conference was a meeting of the Combined Chiefs of Staff , the joint chiefs of staff of the United States and Great Britain , and the foreign ministers of both countries during the Second World War shortly before the Yalta Conference . The meeting on the Mediterranean island of Malta began on January 30th and ended on February 2nd, 1945. The American President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill only met on the last day . The conference was an important exchange between both sides about the further course of the war and the search for a common position in the upcoming negotiations with Stalin in Yalta.
history
Meeting of the Combined Chiefs of Staff
The first meeting of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, the Chief of Staff of the three armed forces of the US forces and the British forces in Malta began on Tuesday, 30 January 1945 at 10 am in Montgomery House in Floriana , a suburb of the Maltese capital Valletta . Another meeting took place on the same day at 2:30 p.m. The Combined Chiefs of Staff maintained this rhythm on all conference days.
Army General George C. Marshall , Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King , General Walter Bedell Smith , General John E. Hull and Admiral Charles M. Cooke were the main representatives of the American delegation of the Combined Chiefs of Staff . On the British side, Field Marshal Alan Brooke , Air Marshal Charles Portal , Fleet Admiral Andrew Cunningham and Field Marshal Henry Maitland Wilson were represented. Attendance at the meetings depended on the topic, but at least eight representatives from each delegation attended the respective meetings. The position of secretary or secretary was performed by several different people, always present in this function was Brigadier General McFarland.
The code name ARGONAUT was used for both the Yalta Conference and the military briefings at the Malta Conference. The code name CRICKETT only describes the island of Malta as a geographical location designation.
Foreign Ministers Meeting
The US Secretary of State Edward Stettinius first met his British counterpart Anthony Eden at a joint dinner on Wednesday, January 31, which was also attended by the British Prime Minister Churchill and other members of both delegations. Both Foreign Ministers had taken up quarters on the British light cruiser HMS Sirius. The ship was in Grand Harbor in Malta. Early in the morning on Thursday, February 1, 1945, Stettinius and Eden went ashore and took a walk. According to Stettinius, some of the problems to be discussed in Yalta were discussed.
The first official meeting took place on board the HMS Sirius in Grand Harbor at 10:30 a.m. on the same day. Three foreign ministers' staff were also present. The future zones of occupation in Germany and Austria, dealing with Poland, Persia, China and Germany, the problem of an ice-free port for the Soviet Union, the future Polish-German and the Austrian-Yugoslav border, the Soviet behavior in Eastern Europe and dealing were discussed with the prisoners of war and war criminals. In a further meeting on the same day, this time with the Chiefs of Staff Marschall and Brooke, the Foreign Ministers were authorized to inform the European Advisory Commission in London on the question of the zones of occupation in Germany that the two governments were now in agreement with the zones. On the evening of February 1st there was another dinner with Prime Minister Churchill.
Meeting of the President and Prime Minister
British Prime Minister Churchill flew on January 29, 1945 from RAF Northolt airfield in a Skymaster , he was accompanied by his daughter Sarah. His personal staff, as well as several ministerial officials, used two other aircraft. Shortly before daybreak, only the Skymaster and one other machine reached Malta; the third had crashed near Pantelleria . Only two crew members and two passengers survived. On arrival, Churchill had a severe fever and was given bed rest. But that evening he received the governor of Malta Edmond Schreiber and the American ambassador to the USSR W. Averell Harriman on the light cruiser HMS Orion , on which he had quartered himself, in Grand Harbor .
The American President Roosevelt initially did not want to attend the conference. He feared that the Yalta Conference would not open in time. It was only after Churchill's repeated requests for a meeting at the highest level that Roosevelt, who was severely impaired due to illness, agreed. Roosevelt traveled to Malta from Gibraltar . On Friday, February 2nd at 9:30 a.m., his ship reached the port of Valletta in Malta. The President took quarters on the heavy cruiser USS Quincy and received the first guests shortly afterwards.
The first official meeting of President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill took place on Friday, February 2nd at 1pm. The two foreign ministers and Churchill's daughter Sarah Olivier attended the meeting. The last meeting of the Combined Chiefs of Staff took place on February 2 at 6 p.m. aboard the USS Quincy, and the meeting was also attended by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill. The Joint Chiefs of Staff shared their interim report with the President and Prime Minister. The report was gone through section by section. The content of the report included the submarine war, the operations in Northwest Europe, the strategy in the Mediterranean and the war against Japan. Churchill was pleased that a great deal of agreement had been reached, but also felt that a final report had yet to follow. Roosevelt agreed and expressed his appreciation for the work done. This was the first session of the Combined Chiefs of Staff that was attended by the President and Prime Minister.
There was a final meeting of Roosevelt and Churchill at a dinner on February 2nd at 8 p.m. The very next day Roosevelt and Churchill flew from Malta to the Crimea for the conference in Yalta.
See also
literature
- Arthur Bryant (Ed.): Victory in the West. From the war diaries of Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke Chief of the Empire General Staff. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1960. Pages 391–398.
- Winston Churchill : The Second World War . (German: Memoirs ) Volume 6, 1st book: Towards victory. Scherz and Goverts Verlag, Stuttgart 1954. Pages 386–395.
- Günter Ehlen, Karl Gottfried Werner: The Conferences of Malta and Yalta. Department of State USA. Documents from July 17, 1944 to June 3, 1945. Robert Kämmerer Verlag für Politische Bildung, Düsseldorf 1957. Pages 429–509.
Web links
- Conference documents of Malta from the United States Department of State (Engl.)